Temperature dependent electron transport and interface state studies on Ni/n-Si/Al/Ag lateral Schottky junction

Abstract

We investigate in this work,the electron transport characteristics across Ni/n-Si Schottky junctions from temperature dependent current–voltage (I-V-T) and capacitance–voltage (C-V-T) studies. Barrier height obtained from I–V measurements exhibited upsurge with increasing temperature, whereas, the ideality factor decreases with increasing temperature within the range of 300K–400K. To analyze electron transport mechanism, possibilities of Thermionic Field Emission and Generation-Recombination have been investigated over the temperature range, and, it has been observed that due to less characteristic energy at discussed temperature range; these effects have a minor contribution to electron transport. To account for the temperature-dependent properties and lateral barrier inhomogeneity, a double Gaussian spatial distribution of the potential barrier has been observed from conventional and modified Richardson plots. The density of Interface states at different energy levels from the conduction band has also been studied.